Film | A Rainy Day in New York

There is something about watching to the right movie at the right time… 

It is the perfect time for me to watch to A rainy day in New York. I was having a perfect day… After weeks of stress and consternation, I finally had a well deserved break. Well,…

not a break exactly. I was still expected at the hospital, I still had a meeting to attend to, but still… There were no deadlines weighting on me, and the meeting was over quickly. There was enough time for me to make my way to one of my favourite movie theatres, listening to “Mystery of Love”. I actually wanted to watch to Parasite, since it had been so highly recommended. But I had been warned it was a downer and it felt right to watch to something lighter after that. I didn’t really know what kind of a movie A rainy day in New York was, but I had a feeling it would be just the kind of movie I needed… That turned out to be spot on… 

 

The movie follows a young college guy named Gatsby (I know, not very subtle) and his girlfriend on a weekend trip to New York City. Gatsby grew up in the city, but after being kicked out of some posh Ivy league school he was enrolled in Yardley (a liberal arts college upstate), and that’s where he met Ashleigh, budding journalist and former miss Arizona. From the start they seem to come from different worlds, but Gatsby is madly in love with the girl and is looking forward to showing her the city. The girl has landed an interview with a big-shot movie director in New York, and that’s why they are going, although Gatsby is really looking forward to showing her all his favourite spots when the work part of the weekend is done. He is not even telling his mother he will be in town, just so he won’t have to stop by one of her boring, uptight parties. He has many romantic ideas of what they are going to do together, but New York, as it turns out, has its own plans for the two youngsters, and every single one of his plans gets flipped upside down. 

The Met is one of the places I wanna visit the most when i am in New York...

I have watched to quite a few of Woody Allen movies by now… I still remember the first one I ever watched, Midnight in Paris, in the movie theatre, years and years ago… I know that he has a special relationship with the settings of his movies, he really captures some sort of essence of the cities in which it happens… This time, however, it was so different… I mean… Midnight in Paris had many scenic visions of the city of lights… Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona dived in the architecture of Gaudi and the sounds of Spanish Guitar… But the New York City I saw in this movie was not… obvious… by any means… There were no shots of the statue of liberty or the top of the Empire state building… Instead, I was shown the city from the interior of the apartments of New Yorkers… the walks through small, nonchalant streets,… the rain, the everlasting rain on the windows of yellow cabs and hotel rooms… 

The director Ashleigh was supposed to interview takes an interest in the girl. And then there’s the writer… And then an actor… One thing leads to another and she goes on an adventure of her own, completely separate from her nerdy boyfriend. Which of course frees Gatsby to adventures of his own… And as he runs into several of his former colleagues, all of which are enrolled in New York schools, he realizes that he has no business being anywhere else. This is where he belongs. 

It was a delicious movie to watch, particularly now… And it was a movie so clearly made by people who love cinema… The references to classic movies were everywhere… They really spoke to me… Not to mention how nice it is to spend a couple of hours with a character who thinks in the same frequency as oneself… Someone who thinks of being at the top of the Empire state building… When it’s raining… In black and white… 

And of course there was the rain, everywhere… I so love those grey skies… 

How perfect my day was...